Do you suspect mycoplasma contamination?

The contamination of cells with mycoplasma is a very common problem, even though it often goes unnoticed since no cloudiness appears in the cell culture.

If you have a slight suspicion in mind, you may want to try out our ready-to-use, time saving EZ-PCR test kit for the detection of mycoplasma in your cell culture.

You already know mycoplasma has found its way into your cell culture ?

The contamination often causes biochemical changes as well as changes in the immunological properties of the cells. Since mycoplasma-infected cells cannot always be discarded, many complicated methods have been suggested for the elimination of the mycoplasma.

Biological Industries offers the BIOMYC-1, BIOMYC-2 andBIOMYC-3 antibiotic combinations, which have been shown to be effective in the elimination of mycoplasma species that account for 90% of the contaminations found in cell cultures. When using according to instructions, no cytotoxic effects will occur.

 

Mycoplasma is a prokaryotic microorganism of the class Mollicutes that lack a true cell wall, and many of which are considered pathogenic.

Mycoplasma contamination is often detected in cell cultures, and consequently, virus cultures, vaccines and other biological materials produced in cells become contaminated as well.

Mycoplasma contamination in cell lines used for research poses a serious problem. In most cases, visual detection of such contaminations or detection with the aid of a microscope is impossible. Although mycoplasma does not cause visible damage to cells, it undeniably affects cell metabolism, cell growth in culture, protein synthesis, cytokine secretion, and even causes damage to DNA and RNA. Hence, results obtained from experiments are liable to be biased when mycoplasma is present. Various studies show that the percentage of contaminated cultures in cell banks is 10%-80%.

Mycoplasma contamination can originate from bovine serum, laboratory employees, other contaminated cultures, or the animals from which the cells have been harvested.